The Eli F3-RES is a very beautiful high performance F3-RES model from Eastern Europe. With attractive elliptical flying surfaces (hence the name) and a very long tailboom it flies as well as it looks. The Eli model won all three Slovak competitions in F3-RES in Slovakia in 2020. It was 4th place in Austrian F3-RES nationals and won E-RES once. Eli is made from very accurately CNC and laser cut balsa with lightweight wound tubular carbon booms for the main spar and tailboom, giving excellent strength and light weight.
The Eli F3-RES design philosophy, as stated by the manufacturer is "This model is made for more dynamic flying which you know from F3J and F5J, it is not for standing in the wind. Whole conception is adapted to this fact. There are tubes for ballast about 100 g in the wing."
The balsa and ply parts are cleanly laser and CNC cut. The fuselage consists of a wooden (plywood/balsa) pod and a light weight tapered carbon tailboom with a balsa tailplane mount. The fin is fixed to the tailboom and the tailplane is removable. Both the fin and the tailplane are cut from a high quality lightweight balsa. The wing is connected to the fuselage using a through joiner. This makes for fast and easy assembly at the field as the wing is retained by magnets - there is nothing to screw. The wing main spar is a tapered carbon tube, which provides excellent strength and very light weight. Riblets ensure the covering material follows the airfoil contour accurately. There are two large spoilers for safely exiting thermals and precise landings.
The Eli can be built fast and accurately without any complications. The kit contents include all the necessary parts to build this sophisticated model easily, including pre-bent leading edge parts and a wing rib alignment jig. The well selected balsa and ply parts are cleanly laser cut and the wound carbon spars are light and well made, with the tip spars tapered. All the control parts and small accessories are included. The kit comes with parts to allow the model to be built as a pure glider or an electric glider. However the internal width is only about 23mm at the nose so installing an outrunner will be a squeeze.
The kit includes a professional quality full size plan with isometric views and a beautifully illustrated English build manual. Also see this excellent photo build log as an additional construction guide.
This is one of the nicest F3-RES kits we have seen and is highly recommended.
